This Section will concentrate on the breadbag contents in no particular order.
A diversity of personal belongings will be shown here
An item that could be found in almost every breadbag was the so called Fettbüchse or Fat Container.
It was a small round box with a
diameter of aprox 10,5 cm made out of bakelite
which contained butter, fat or schmalz (lard) which was used for
cooking or was spread on bread.
Appearently every soldier was
authorized aprox 72 grams of this fat per day and a fat container could
hold about three rations (aprox 220 grams).
These containers could be found in a lot of different colours.
It was introduced by order HV 38B (Heeres Verordnung 38B) dated June 1st, 1938 (see note at end of page)
Below a few examples in orange, red/brown and black
Below: Detail picture of the standard orange fat container
The screw lid of the container came with a fine thread and coarse thread.
Most of the time the fine thread
means a post war production, but it can be easily checked:
Original lids allways opens and closes in one quarter of a turn.
Below left: black fat conrainer with fine thread
Below right: orange container with coarse thread
Bakelite is an early sort of
plastic and was used extensively for the German Army
because of it's heat resistance and electrically non-conductive
properties.
Each bakelite article was supposed
to be marked which showed the producer and the material it was made of.
This mark was known as the M P D marking (which stands for
Staatliches Material Prüfungsamt Dahlem (near
Berlin)
Below a few examples encountered on the orange, red-brown and black fat container
24 - Manufacturer : Gebrüder Merten, Gummersbach (Rhld.)
K - Material used : Urea Resin with organic filler
6 - probably batch number
3F - Manufacturer : Reininghaus & Co.,
Beleuchtungskörper-Fabrik, Lüdenscheid i. Westf.S - Material used : Phenolic Resin with wood filler (Sawdust)
0X - Maufacturer : Karl Friedr. Seiter K.G.,
Bollwerk i. Westf., Post OberbrüggeS - Material used : Phenolic Resin with wood filler (Sawdust)
NOTE :
If you happen to have the text of
the Heeres Verordnung 38B I would be very interested in it
and would be very pleased if I could add the text here